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| Myanmar soldiers gang-raped Rohingya women: UN |
DHAKA: Myanmar soldiers “systematically targeted” Rohingya women for gang-rape during violence against the minority Muslim community which triggered an exodus to Bangladesh, a UN special envoy said on Sunday.
Pramila Patten, a special
representative of the UN secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, made
the comments after visiting Bangladesh’s district of Cox’s Bazaar where some
610,000 Rohingya have taken refuge in the last ten weeks.
Many of these atrocities “could be
crimes against humanity”, she said.
“I heard horrific stories of rape
and gang-rape, with many of the women and girls who died as a result of the
rape,” Patten told reporters in Dhaka.
“My observations point to a pattern
of widespread atrocities, including sexual violence against Rohingya women and
girls who have been systematically targeted on account of their ethnicity and
religion.”
The sexual violence in Myanmar’s
northern state of Rakhine was “commanded, orchestrated and perpetrated by the
armed forces of Myanmar”, she said.
“The forms of sexual violence we
consistently heard about from survivors include gang-rape by multiple soldiers,
forced public nudity and humiliation and sexual slavery in military captivity.”
“One survivor described being held
in captivity by the Myanmar armed forces for 45 days, during which time she was
repeatedly raped. Others still bore visible scars, bruises and bite marks
attesting to their ordeal,” Patten added.
Deadly raids by Rohingya militants
on Myanmar police posts on August 25 sparked ferocious reprisals against the
community by the military in the mainly Buddhist nation.
The special representative said
others involved in the sexual violence included Myanmar border police and
militias composed of Buddhists and other ethnic groups in Rakhine.
Refugees are still streaming across
the border from Rakhine into Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands have
settled in squalid camps.
The UN now estimates the majority of
the Rohingya once living in Rakhine — previously estimated at around one
million — have fled a campaign of violence it has likened to ethnic cleansing.
Patten said the sexual violence was
a key reason behind the exodus and occurred in the context of “collective
persecution” of the Rohingya.
“The widespread threat and use of
sexual violence was clearly a driver and push factor for forced displacement on
a massive scale and a calculated tool of terror aimed at the extermination and
the removal of the Rohingya as a group,” she said.
For decades the Rohingya have faced
persecution in Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and denigrated as
illegal “Bengali” immigrants.
